Yaroslav Stetsko and the KGB special operation: “To Kill an Anti-Semite”

(from the book of Alik Gomelsky “Jewish-Ukrainian relations. 20th century”)

I would like to consider another attempt by the Soviet punitive bodies to play the “Jewish card” in the fight against the Ukrainian liberation movement.
The recently declassified SBU KGB documents are impressive. And the scope, and ingenuity, and the depth of the approach …

Prehistory: Yaroslav Stetsko, Deputy Head of the OUN (B) Stepan Bandera, Prime Minister of the Ukrainian State, proclaimed June 30, 1941, was arrested by the Gestapo on July 4, 1941 and remained in custody until the end of 1944. Since 1946, for 40 years, he headed the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Peoples (ABN) and at that time was one of the most prominent figures of the Ukrainian liberation movement. This naturally made him the target of operations of Soviet punitive bodies.
According to B. Stashinsky (killers L. Rebet and S. Bandera), by order of his curators, he thoroughly studied Stetsko’s habits, routines and addresses in Munich, but never received the approval of the KGB for the murder of the head of the ABN. Unlike Rebet and Bandera, in the late 1950s, Ya. Stetsko was a popular political figure not only of the Ukrainian diaspora and the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people, but also the leader of the international anti-communist movement.

Declassified documents consist of:
• memorandum by the chairman of the KGB of Ukraine V. Fedorchuk addressed to V. Shcherbitsky dated December 1973
• an information message from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of October 1969 that a propaganda operation was carried out in relation to Y. Stetsko
• leaflets in Hebrew and Yiddish with a call to kill Ya. Stetsko
• translation of the text of the leaflet into Russian
Each of the documents, in my opinion, is a kind of radioactive charge that irradiates both the Jewish and Ukrainian peoples with its deadly rays of mutual discord and hatred.

Well, let’s look at each of them in detail. Let’s start with a note by Fedorchuk. I quote: “… in order to incite enmity between Ukrainian nationalists and Zionists in the USA, a brochure“ So We Didn’t Forget ”was published, which documented the involvement of the OUN members during the Second World War in the mass destruction of civilians, including to the so-called “Jewish shares” … one of the leaders of the progressive Ukrainian organization “League of American Ukrainians” who visited Ukraine in recent years and had the opportunity to legendary the presence of n his materials used in the brochure … “.

The signature stamp “Top Secret” allows Fedorchuk to describe absolutely frankly and cynically:
the goal is inciting ethnic hatred;
method – disinformation brochure;
tool – an agent of the Soviet special services from the Ukrainian diaspora.

The following quote: “… In order to popularize the pamphlet, the“ author ”… involved one of the Jewish progressive figures of New York as the“ co-publisher ”of this event. The joint speech of progressive Ukrainian and Jewish organizations in the USA against the OUN members as war criminals gave a certain political effect … ”

So, for the KGB special task, the geek of the Ukrainian people attracted a geek of the Jewish people like him. Due to the fact that we know the name of the libel (“Lest We Forget”), the date of publication (first – 1973) and the place (USA), then we can quite easily find it. This brochure and now, in 2019, is in absolutely free sale on Amazon and many other online book resources. Posted by Michael Ganusyak, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, a member of the United States Communist Party. Due to the amount of work done, the 93-year-old writer received on October 11, 2006 a clearly very warm place in the underworld. The company there will be made up to him (or already made up) by comrade Sam Pevzner, an employee of the Yiddish newspaper Morgen Freichait, also associated with the US Communist Party.

We read the document further: “… The Jewish” Organization for the Fight against Fascism, Racism and Anti-Semitism “intends to hand over to the FBI the list of persons accused of brochure in genocide, demanding their search and punishment …”.

One Gd knows what kind of organization Comrade Fedorchuk meant, but she received trump cards from the KGB of the USSR in order to unleash enmity between Jews and Ukrainians to incredible turns …

Let us now proceed, in fact, to the case of Yaroslav Stetsko. Another top secret document of the KGB of Ukraine tells us that: “… Since 1966, the KGB of Ukraine conducted a series of events (author’s note – as in the original) as a result of which the leader of the OUN Stetsko was exposed to the wider Jewish community as one of the main culprits of the OUN’s participation in the Nazi genocide.In the development of these events, on behalf of persons of Jewish nationality living in Germany and outraged by Stetsko’s impunity, we are in Hebrew / Hebrew, Yiddish / and English a leaflet has been prepared calling for Stetsko’s revenge for the thousands of innocent victims of genocide. These leaflets are sent to the editorial offices of the Jewish press in the United States, England, France, Israel and Germany … “

Undecided in the 1950s to destroy Ya. Stetsko on their own, the Communists decided to slander the head of the OUN and set Jews on him.

Now the details: the leaflet in English could be read without problems in any of these countries. Yiddish in the late 1960s also published a lot of periodicals in Europe and America. But the key here, I consider the Hebrew text and that’s why. Only one organization in the world carried out physical liquidation operations for those who threatened the Jewish population of the planet: the Israeli Mossad. By 1970, the HaMosad le Modiin y le Tafkidim Meyuhadim asset, that is, the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (briefly the Institute) ) were the following high-profile operations:

abduction and export from Argentina to Israel of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann

The elimination of a number of German specialists working for the Egyptian missile program

hijacking from the French port of Cherburn 5 missile boats made for Israel, but fell under an embargo.

The killing or abduction of the head of the ABN, Yaroslav Stetsko, who was openly living in Munich and traveled around the world a lot, was quite simple, but the Israelis, having studied the issue, ignored such a “setup”. The Ukrainian leader, who spent 3 years in a Polish prison and 3.5 years in Nazi prisons and a concentration camp, was a danger to the USSR, but not to Jews and Israel!

Well, the last document is the text of the leaflet itself. Here are a few quotes:
1) “… Yaroslav Stetsko responsible for the actions of the Ukrainian police and gangs, the so-called UPA …”
It’s in vain. The Ukrainian police were recruited by the Nazis, not OUN (B). The UPA was essentially created only in 1942-1943, when Ya. Stetsko was imprisoned by the Nazis for 1.5 years.

2) “… We absolutely do not notice how the Nazi Oberlander and Stetsko formed together with their own kind the” European Freedom Council “…”.
This refers to the World Anti-Communist League.

3) “… The world community, outraged by the increase in telephone tariffs, calmly looks at how the British Prime Minister Wilson receives in his residence a gang of Stetsko, Oberlander and their friends …”.
There’s a puncture, if the head of the British Labor Party considers it acceptable to formally communicate with J. Stetsko, not considering him a war criminal, then …

4) “… How long will we meekly endure this geek. Is there really no person among the Jewish people who defend their homeland with such brilliance who can … put bullets into this self-righteous mug? …”.
And this is already a clear excess, giving out with giblets the instigators from the KGB, calling for the political assassination of the head of the ABN by the hands of the Israeli special services.

A few words about the infamous “Zhyttepys Yaroslav Stetsk”. It was mentioned by US Communists Ganusyak and Pevzner, picked up and declared an authentic document by historians D-P.Khimka, M. Tsarinnik and K. Bergkof (Tsarinnik and Bergkof I had to refute in the case of “transcripts of the OUN (B) conference” which turned out to be a propaganda fake).

Without even mentioning that “zhtytepys” does not stand up to criticism in terms of style, revisions, languages ​​and paper, I can point out several defining points:

no sane person will write his biography in the language of his jailers

the son of a Christian priest is very likely to not be able to support the destruction of innocent children, women and the elderly

the use of “zhtytepys” by the Communists as evidence of the criminality of their political adversary (against the backdrop of outright lies and insinuations) raises very serious doubts about the authenticity of these “memoirs”

promotion of the campaign on defamation of Y. Stetsko exclusively by the left and communist circles, operating and funded by the USSR, is indirect evidence of the forgedness of the “zhtytepys” …

The above KGB documents are dated and cover the period between October 1969 and December 1973, but there is more to come. The recently declassified CIA archives shed additional light on the extent of the KGB operation against Yaroslav Stetsko and Ukrainian immigrants to the United States.

So, on the eve of Leonid Brezhnev’s visit to the United States (June 18, 1973), a representative of the USSR Embassy in Washington turned to American intelligence agencies stating that Ukrainian nationalists, headed by Y. Stetsko, are planning to kill Brezhnev during this visit. The execution of the murder was entrusted to “young Ukrainians who took part in the military operations of the US Army in Vietnam and are known for their fanaticism … The US Army Major Kravtsiv, the son of the Ukrainian nationalist Bohdan Kravtsiv, takes the most active part in these plans and preparations for the terrorist attack.”

As can be seen from the mailing list, the then US Secretary of State G. Kissinger was fully devoted to the ongoing investigation. It follows from this that the hunting and provocations against Y. Stetsko from the KGB not only did not stop during the period 1969-1973 but were expanded so much that they had a secondary goal in the person of one of the key figures of the US Army.

Yes, yes, Nicholas (Mikola) Kravtsiv, who fought in Vietnam, was one of the developers of the US Army tactics in Vietnam, as well as operations in Panama (1989-1990) and Iraq (including Desert Storm 1991 and the liberation of Iraq in 2003) . Having retired with the rank of Major General of the US Army, N. Kravtsiv for several years helped to create an army of independent Ukraine.

To summarize: although the KGB’s special operation did not lead to the expected result of the USSR – the physical elimination of Yaroslav Stetsko, the propaganda effect from it turned out to be incredibly strong and long-term. Based on numerous discussions and disputes with my opponents, I can say that even 50 years after this operation, Y. Stetsko is considered a pathological anti-Semite and executioner of the Jewish people. Think about it, reader! In fact, the only evidence of Y. Stetsko’s “anti-Semitism” is the phrase (even the phrase!) From his “memoirs”, which in fact turn out to be a fake of the KGB of the USSR. Thus, one of the main leaders of the Ukrainian national liberation movement, Y. Stetsko, as well as the head of the UPR, Simon Petlyura, are slandered by Soviet propaganda in order to incite ethnic hatred between two peoples close to me: Jewish and Ukrainian.

The card made the KGB. On the right is the text in Hebrew, on the left – in Yiddish. Translate the text of the postcard Yaroslav Stetsko (standing) and his wife Yaroslava (sitting left). Yaroslav Stetsko and US President George H. W. Bush. Major General of the US Army Nikolai Kravtsiv